30-01-2001 02:26									#1
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In the Map of Planet, which special landmark do you think is the most valuable to hold?

As for myself, I think that the Monsoon Jungle gives you incredible power, allowing you to build 10-12 bases which will almost definately become the jewels of your colony. Put farm-solar-road everywhere except on the rocky squares (where you put boreholes) and you will out-tech and out-grow and out-money people like Zakharov, Yang and Morgan easily all at the same time. The jungle bases are also extra efficient at building SPs and Busters.
IMO, no other area is as valuable. Just make sure no-one nukes it or you will be in a world of pooh.

	30-01-2001 03:53									#2
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The Jungle is great for initial growth.

The Nexus kicks ass though.

	30-01-2001 04:08									#3
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Those Geothermal Shallows are cool looking

	30-01-2001 12:42									#4
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I generally forest the jungle, which I always felt was a cheesy landmark.

But now that I have started to play with specialist cities I must say that I find the Freshwater Sea to be pretty wild.

On the huge map of planet the FS has some 70 tiles, all ocean shelf off course. So I build 10 bases with sea access. Give each base two boreholes to be worked, and then send out some sea formers to plant sea kelp. (I find planting in a diagonal pattern encourages growth, but this might be superstition.) These bases start to churn out sea crawlers, which bring home the nuts. Together with aquafarms this means that these cities can pop to 16. Of these 16 there are 14 specialists, and the base still rakes in 14 minerals a turn.

It would actually be more effective to do this with the jungle, and just cover it in farms, soil enrichers and as many condensers on nut specials as can be managed, but the difference in terraforming time is HUGE!. And using the sea means that those kelp farms grow by themselves.

Once a city pass a pop of 40 or so and need more nuts to take advantage of added orbital satellites then I generally forest the surrounding area. (Often this has been auto-accomplished so it's no big worry.)

I expand along the normal western sea border as usual, and up along the pholus ridge and over toward the choke point cutting me off from the the Mount Planet landing site. This generally means I end up with about 40-50 bases in an infantry defense spacing model. The specialists along with my horrible number of bases means I end up with a tech a turn (or more) even on a huge map and tech stag.

	30-01-2001 14:24									#5
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If not playing a green faction (Gaians or CoP), I would take the Manifold nexus as most valuable location, even more than the Jungle.

I always play random maps, that makes the game more exiting, because You don't know where to find the landmarks. I am always very delighted if I scout the unoccupied Manifold nexus, and there were games I sent a colony pod around half the planet to get it.

But the jungle is clearly my number to, and number one playing a green faction. But the jungle is great as a starting location. Discovering later in game it's still valuable, but can cause problems, because growth will be faster than the building of infastructure.

Other locations I like to grab for me are the garland crater with his minerals, the freshwater sea and mount planet (ideal crawler park).

I have to confess that I hadn't take much use of the Pholus ridge, it always was in my enemies territorry, or I discovered it to late to take use of it.

	30-01-2001 17:45									#6
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For Morgan (or another economic based faction), I venture that the Unity Crash Site is the best. The ability to find the starting locations of the other factions gives you a good head start on contacting them and gaining commerce from them, especially on larger maps.

	31-01-2001 07:44									#7
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I like to capture the jungle from AI's, it's the only place they build bases worth capturing

	31-01-2001 07:54									#8
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I like the Flats myself - I know they need work to make them useful, but plonk a few forests down and drill an aquifer later ... they're my preferred landmark. The Jungle is much more powerful, but it's over-powered. It's slightly embarrassing to get the Jungle in MP

	01-02-2001 07:18									#9
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Is there anything special about the Pholus Ridge?

I like to get the Unity Crash Site, too. It is great to put a base in the middle and then build solar panels everywhere for the extra elevation energy points. I also love Garland Crater for the minerals.

	01-02-2001 08:10									#10
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I like the ruins cause there like having 8 forest terraformed around your base early in the game....not to mention there cool

	01-02-2001 14:53									#11
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Pholus Ridge gives you +1 energy for the tiles at the top of the hill.

	02-02-2001 00:16									#12
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The Ruins are *mega* useful if you are playing either the Gaians or the Cult....all that luvverly fungus for worm-catching, and that rather nice bunch of monoliths....not so much use later in the game, though.

I agree with Mis about the jungle - not sure about it being embarrasing though - I often see it as a chance to actually win an MP game....
[This message has been edited by mark13 (edited February 01, 2001).]

	03-02-2001 04:19									#14
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Monsoon Jungle is best all-around, it's true, but otherwise it depends on the faction you play.

Gaians: Ruins are tops. Early terraforming ability helps exploit ALL landmarks! Manifold Nexus is a huge boost to Green Conquest.

Hive: Energy-poor faction is helped tremendously by Uranium Flats. Pholus Ridge gives +1 energy on four high elevation tiles (which are usually covered with fungus or are rocky), but is much tougher to exploit. Nutrient bonuses from the Jungle and Freshwater Sea help make up for lack of pop boom. You need Ecological Engineering to exploit the Borehole Cluster and Garland Crater, so this is tough for weak researchers like the Hive.

University: Capitializing on research strength by boosting energy is the best strategy: Flats, Borehole Cluster, Geothermal Shallows

Morgan: Another energy faction (see above), but minerals help overcome support limitation.

Spartans: Minerals, minerals, minerals to overcome the -1 industry.

Believers: Manifold nexus to cancel -1 planet, then energy to boost research and minerals to build weapons. Believers can be pretty flexible and take advantage of most landscapes.

Peacekeepers: This faction has the hardest time traveling great distances to exploit landmarks, especially those yielding energy. With -1 efficiency, there's no place like home continent! High had limits make for maximum exploitation of Inland Sea and Monsoon Jungle.

	03-02-2001 05:44									#15
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Good breakdown there.

On a different note, has anyone created a custom map with the Nessus Canyon on it? The landmark exists, and it works perfectly, but for some reason it is never used in SMAC's random map generator.

	03-02-2001 07:23									#16
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I remember I was playing around with the map generator and found it. Doesn't it give an extra mineral for each square in it? That plus the Garland Crater on your continent would be very powerful.

	05-02-2001 17:33									#17
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This thread let's me think of the questions how to use best the smaller landmarks, like the ruins or the Garland crater.
Is it better to build a base in it's center to gain the whole benefits in one base (somehow, the "eye" of the ruins seems to pray "Build a base right here!" to me"),
or is it better to share the goodies of the landmark to two or three marginal bases?

	05-02-2001 21:36									#18
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Forest the interior, mine the mineral bonuses, solar and drill to aquifier the energy bonus, farm/se the nutrient bonus. Almost all of the time the river created by drilling flows into the crater, giving you 6 river squares, 1 of which is in your base in the center. Crawler in some nuts for growth until tree farms, and you have a mean lean SP building machine with decent energy output.

	06-02-2001 21:27									#19
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I forgot my favorite landmark: Mt. Planet! You get +1 energy AND +1 mineral plus high elevation! The summit is like free forest (1-2-1).

Rocky squares get a mine for 0-6-1. All others get solar for 1-2-5. It's the ideal location for an energy park --ring the mountain with echelon mirrors in the foothills.

	06-02-2001 21:38									#20
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Is there anyway to create your own landmark? Along with some bonus. I guess somewhere in the alphatext there is a way. A new graphic would be nice but I guess I could just use a variation of the other ones. This might be better in creation.

	11-02-2001 23:21									#22
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When you speak of the 'ruins', I am assuming that you are talking about the one with the 'ripple inscriptions'? Do you build so as to include the parts and how do you terraform the location if at all?

In the 'uranium field' - do you mine each spot? If some extend into the ocean - mine likewise?

I've never found the 'unity crash site'.

	12-02-2001 00:01									#23
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Ibores, the ruins are the landmark with 8 monoliths.

	12-02-2001 02:02									#24
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The ruins can be really useful for the pirates on a random map, if they are there own island. Build 3 or 4 sea bases on the coast, each of these bases then have a couple of monoliths, clean away some fungus and plant forest. Later build a base in the middle(to stop some cheeky AI building there) and build 8 boreholes (at the maximum density possible), making the ruin island a real industrial powerhouse for much of the game.

I always build several bases on or around the smaller landmarks, you can reap the full benefit of the landmark a lot quicker that way, and remember that get too much minerals in one base and you have ecodamage problems.

	12-02-2001 04:01									#25
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Yes, the ruins ROCK! I'm playing a game as the borgs now,and my middle island has the Ruins. Nice...

If playing Morgan,the best is the Mount Planet.

Garland's Crater is good too...